One of the characteristics of a young person who is ready to be a productive Christian is the awareness of their gifts from God. Unfortunately, your kids didn’t come with a user manual where God lists each of your children’s gifts from Him. Many people go through their entire lives not realizing God has given them one or more gifts to use in serving the Kingdom. It is one of the saddest conversations I regularly have with adults – they have missed part of their sense of purpose in life and in the Church because they never discovered their gifts.
One of the most rewarding parts of Christian parenting is helping your kids discover, develop and begin to use the gifts God has given them to serve Him. It can be a fun journey for you and your kids. It won’t always be the smoothest of journeys as there are often false starts and disappointments along the way. It will give you pure joy though to watch your child use a gift for God in service to Him at some point in the future – especially a gift you helped your child discover and develop.
You may not be aware of your own gifts yet. Or you may have no idea how to get started, as the possibilities are rather endless and the gifts each of your children was given may be very different. There are, however, a lot of fun things you can do when your children are young to begin the discovery process with them.
Here are some of the favorite ones we did with our daughter when she was little:
Continue reading Fun Ways For Kids To Discover Their Gifts From God
Perhaps the most underused resource in the Church is our children and teens. Oh, many churches sink tons of money and people resources into keeping them entertained or from “disturbing” adult activities or if you are blessed, helping them learn more about God. Yet, hardly any church is actually tapping into children and teens as a meaningful part of the body – a resource that will benefit both God’s Kingdom and the young people.
Attend many churches and you would think the old adage “children should be seen and not heard” is still in effect. Often children are hustled out for children’s worship as soon as possible or aren’t even really welcomed into corporate worship at all. You may see a couple of kids picking up attendance cards or used communion cups and even an occasional teen participating in worship leading activities. In general though, children are kept out of the way and either entertained or merely prevented from “disrupting” adults and their activities.
Perhaps, the scariest thing to me about parenting is the fear of my daughter rejecting God. Many of my parenting decisions were made because I wanted to be able to honestly say I did everything I knew how to do to help her be strong spiritually. And yet there are no guarantees your child will be a faithful, productive Christian as an adult. Or are there?
One of our goals in this ministry is to give adults the tools to help every child reach his or her godly potential. We believe God wants every child to become a Christian – obeying, worshipping and serving God. We believe God knows every child will be given various opportunities in life to serve others and share their faith. We also believe God has given each child special gifts, that if identified and developed, will be extremely helpful in completing the opportunities God knows will be there for them to serve Him.